Above the Seven-Star Trench, the wind tore foam off the waves. Far below, the water barely moved.
Pei Jing sank feetfirst along the rock wall, his arms loose at his sides. He carried no air bladder or diving line. A light stone might have shown him more of the wall, but it would also have shown everything in the trench where he was.
A thousand feet down, the last green light turned a deep blue and went out. He felt the cold through his clothes. Up near the surface, the water had been warm enough for the coral gardens. Down here, it was barely above freezing.
The weight on his chest grew as he descended. He reached a shelf near three thousand feet. It was about as deep as the clam bed he’d visited, but on the far side of the trench. Both shelves lay well above the deepest channels marked in paces on Jin’s chart. As he settled on it, he heard a sharp click inside his ribs.
He stopped and waited for pain. There was none. His bones had settled under the pressure. Decades of training had hardened his ribs, spine, and joints until they could take a weight that would have buckled an iron vessel. His Turtle Respiration Art slowed his heart to six beats a minute. The qi in his marrow kept him alive without a breath of air, and a thin layer of qi held the freezing salt water away from his skin.
